This chapter provides brief conclusions drawing together the threads of the story and its wider analysis, the political and religious context, its transnational significance and the insights a single document and event have provided. Returning to some of the themes raised in the introduction, reflects on the role of truth and secrecy amid the practicalities for ministers of upholding an ideological cause.

Chapter 6 focuses on fears of espionage and treachery, but also the extensive use of information and intelligence-gathering by all sides, and the fine distinctions between these. The close connection with ambassadors and their contacts is discussed, alongside how spies and spying were viewed by contemporaries, through correspondence and judicial records. Explores extensive fears of plots and foreign intervention and how this affected diplomatic and confessional relations; the execution of experienced courier, Jean Abraham, secretary to the prince of Condé, exemplifies this. Looks in detail at contemporary English concerns about a Franco-Scottish alliance in support of Mary Queen of Scots, making links from these concerns to the activities of Norris, cardinal Châtillon and to the network exposed by the letters carried by Tivinat. Attention is given to the role of female agents and especially to double agents, such as Edmund Mather, whose career and connections to Norris, Regnard/Changy and the wider network are explored in detail.

Chapter 5 explores the importance of the communication of news and information through correspondence, but also the problems of its interception and betrayal. Couriers faced the risk of violence and incarceration, particularly at times of diplomatic tension, and strategies of concealment could be quite sophisticated to counter this, such as the use of ciphers, pseudonyms and other methods. Nevertheless, the dangers to which Tivinat and other couriers were exposed was considerable, their detention was a frequent occurrence, as was that of Huguenots carrying books and papers, as shown in cases drawn from the Conciergerie in Paris. Consideration is given to the importance of correspondence as a source for both contemporaries and historians. The news content of the letters carried by Tivinat is discussed in detail, revealing concerns with events both international and domestic. Connections between the letters and those found in other circumstances, such as on the body of the prince of Condé and in the English State Papers, are made, identifying Regnard/Changy as their author and the complexity of the network in which he operated.

This chapter introduces the interrogation document and associated letters around which the book is based and summarises the structure of the book and the content of its chapters. Emphasises the European-wide context of the Huguenot network that is revealed as well as the circumstances of the French religious wars c. 1567–1571. Engages with the relevant historiographical themes, including studies of correspondence and communication, diplomacy, intelligence-gathering and espionage, and confessional and transnational connections. Addresses the sub-themes of truth and secrecy and how these provide the backdrop for the clandestine confessional activities to be explored, particularly through the participation of Huguenot ministers. Investigates what we are able to reconstruct about the man, Jean Tivinat, who was arrested for and interrogated about his role in carrying the correspondence and the circumstances of his incarceration at the château of Dieppe.

Chapter 3 explores in detail the households between which Tivinat was carrying the correspondence: of Henry Norris, the English ambassador, in the suburbs of Paris and of Odet de Coligny, the cardinal of Châtillon, in the outskirts of London. Discusses Norris’s experience as ambassador and the challenges of this role, not least the interception of couriers, as well as the difficulty of negotiating between the French and English courts at a time of turbulent diplomatic relations. Establishes the importance of his household as a hub of Protestant activity. Châtillon’s life and career are examined as context for his experience of exile in England and his role as diplomat at Elizabeth’s court from 1568 to 1571. Establishes the importance of his contribution as Huguenot representative, facilitating a Protestant network of ministers and agents across Europe, as well as the links of this network with the two households and the correspondence carried by Tivinat. The role of other prominent figures in exile with Châtillon are also explored.

This chapter summarizes the main lessons for diplomacy that we derive from our study. These eight lessons are: 1. A major factor separates the crises that escalate to war from those that do not; in the latter, a strong leader reins in any hard-liners who advocate going to war. 2. Individuals make a difference. 3. Contingency plays a more important role than system structure in determining whether or not a crisis escalates to war. 4. Someone must stand for peace. 5. The secret to preventing war structurally is to find a functional equivalent to war. 6. Norms and rules are important for avoiding war – and, therefore, maintaining peace. 7. War can be avoided; it is not inevitable. 8. The realist concepts of the national interest and balance of power do not always accurately describe the behavior of states.

One of the main challenges faced by the missionaries and their US supporters was the renewal of their short-term visas. The State Department repeatedly urged its Italian counterparts to consider issuing permanent or long-term residence permits, hoping to eliminate one of the most contentious points of the ongoing dispute. While the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs was generally sympathetic to these proposals and sought to accommodate Washington’s requests, it faced significant resistance from Mario Scelba, the inflexible interior minister, as well as repeated pressures from the Vatican. The Vatican followed the matter with interest and concern, viewing the presence of Protestant missionaries as a potential threat to Italy’s Catholic identity and spiritual unity. Catholic propaganda leaned heavily on familiar anti-Protestant tropes, portraying Protestantism as a foreign import, threatening the country’s cohesion and spiritual unity, which, it was argued, was essential to counter the Communist threat. The visa issue became a constant point of contention, resolved only through temporary solutions and case-by-case renewals. Meanwhile, the missionaries frequently clashed with Italian authorities, who sporadically (and inconsistently) harassed them by shutting down preaching halls or preventing access to their facilities.

The Mongol Empire became a chief destination for European travellers in a very specific moment of the medieval period, roughly framed by two events: Ögedei Khan’s European campaign of 1240−41, and the formal fall of the last Yuan Mongolian emperor in 1368, which marked the takeover of the Chinese Ming dynasty and the opening of a new social and political paradigm in Asia. Between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Mongol rule brought about an unprecedented geopolitical stability across Eurasia, traditionally referred to by historians as Pax Mongolica. The general safety of the roads and the relatively smooth administrative system of the Mongol khanates allowed for a productive period of economic and cultural interconnections between Europe and the Far East, whose protagonists were traders, diplomats, missionaries, and adventurers. While merchants exploited the safety of the Silk Road to reach territories both within and beyond the Mongol area, the Mongol Empire was the express destination of several diplomatic and missionary expeditions, carried out by Franciscan and Dominican friars.

In her book A Translucent Mirror, Pamela Crossley wrote that “The Ming empire (1368–1644) was perpetually engaged in a struggle against various peoples along its northern borders.” This bald statement contradicts conventional wisdom that the Ming dynasty, having endured Mongol rule for about a century, attempted to limit relations with foreign lands and developed a policy of isolation. In fact, the Ming empire became embroiled in numerous conflicts along its frontiers. Some of these clashes were defensive, but others were attempts to annex additional territory. The court resolved a few of these conflicts through diplomacy or withdrawal from alien lands, yet others festered throughout the dynasty. It scarcely enjoyed clear-cut victories. Nonetheless, such repeated battles necessitated improvements in military strategy and technology, and it is no accident that a spate of texts on the military appeared during this time. The first Ming emperor himself had to master principles of land and naval warfare in the course of defeating other rebel groups and in seeking to gain the throne.

Russia emerged as a European power in the early eighteenth century with a suddenness that alarmed its neighbors – and indeed some of its more distant potential supporters. Russia’s newfound prominence was in large part the outcome of a series of international conflicts often referred to as “the Northern Wars.” Conflict over the fate of the eastern Baltic littoral had entered a new phase near the middle of the sixteenth century with the decline of the Livonian Order and the growing territorial ambitions of nearby states. Aside from the crusading Order itself, which had formally disbanded by 1561, the nearby states of Denmark, Sweden, Muscovy, Poland-Lithuania, and Brandenburg persistently battled one another over the fate of the littoral, in varying configurations but with surprisingly few intermissions until 1721. The more important of these multilateral conflicts are conventionally identified as the Livonian War (1558–83), the mid-seventeenth-century conflicts among Sweden, the Commonwealth, Muscovy, Brandenburg, and Denmark that included the Thirteen-Years’ War (1654–67), and finally the “Great Northern War” (1720–21) which ended in Russian victory. While the earlier conflicts remained relatively confined, in diplomatic and military terms, to Northern and Eastern Europe, the outcome of the last Northern War not only established the Russian Empire as the dominant Baltic state; it also led to Russia’s broader recognition as a major force in the broader European diplomatic world.

On their first arrival in North America, Europeans entered a strange land but, most of all, an unfamiliar Indigenous economy. While capitalism functioned on a disembodied trade of goods or an abstract exchange of currency, Native societies honored the idea of the gift. On this belief in a gift economy, Indigenous people nurtured trade relations, but also diplomacy, war alliances, marriage, friendship, and peoplehood and ecology themselves. This chapter elucidates the idea and operation of an Indigenous gift economy, as it served and serves Native nations, and explores the gift’s impact on and disruption of European and American capitalist market economies. From this alternative Indigenous economic approach, as presented in anthropology as well as in traditional Indigenous thought, we turn to several representative works in American literature, from ancient myth and early testimony to autobiography, novel, and poetry, to illustrate the place of Indigenous ceremony, such as the giveaway and the potlatch, in its resistance to destructive colonial policy such as removal and allotment. Ultimately, Indigenous gift exchange economies give voice to America’s haunted money, from wampum to bucks, in which Native land was never “the gift outright.”

After the Hannibalic war, the leading military role of consulars diminished, though it did not disappear. A significant number of consuls kept their imperium as proconsuls, but only a very small minority held the consulship again. A number of them held intermediate positions as military tribunes or military legates under the command of magistrates with imperium. Consulars played a leading role in international diplomacy and the organisation of newly conquered territories as members of senatorial embassies, especially in the Greek world. Ex-consuls were also common as heads of commissions in charge of implementing the agrarian policy promoted by the Senate during the second century BCE, both for the foundation of Roman and Latin colonies and for the individual distribution of land. The censorship became the coveted culmination of a political career for many consulars. The Senate was the arena in which consulars assumed a leading role in political debate. In contrast, their intervention in popular assemblies was rare. As in previous periods, many consulars were members of priestly colleges. While most of them entered the colleges (long) before they became consuls, others did so at an advanced age after their consulship.